Health-Care Law Ruled Constitutional by U.S. Judge
http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...u-s-judge.html
October 07, 2010, 4:57 PM EDT
By William McQuillen
(Updates with excerpt from ruling in third paragraph.)
Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. judge upheld the constitutionality of the health-care overhaul President Barack Obama signed in March, rejecting an argument brought by a self- described Christian law center in the first legal victory for the new law.
U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh in Detroit today denied the Thomas More Law Center’s request for an injunction against the law and said the group failed to prove the statute is unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause.
“The minimum coverage provision, which addresses economic decisions regarding health-care services that everyone eventually, and inevitably, will need, is a reasonable means of effectuating Congress’s goal,” Steeh wrote.
Today’s court ruling is the first to uphold the constitutionality of the law, which is being challenged in lawsuits filed across the country. A U.S. judge in Virginia has denied a motion to dismiss a claim targeting the law, and a federal judge in Florida said he is inclined to do the same.
The law center, the plaintiff in the Michigan case along with four uninsured individuals, argued before Steeh that the health-care statute creates a tax, in the form of compulsory insurance, that Congress lacks the power to enact. The center also claimed the law would violate religious freedoms by using its members’ tax dollars to pay for abortions.
The case is Thomas More Law Center v. Obama, 10cv11156, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit).
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